Bio-Methane Potential Tests To Measure The Biogas Production From The Digestion and Co-Digestion of Complex Organic Substrates

Abstract

Bio-methane potential (BMP) tests are widely used in studies concerning the anaerobic digestion of organic solids. Although they are often criticized to be time consumer, with an average length longer than 30 days, such tests are doubtless easy to be conducted, relatively inexpensive and repeatable. Moreover, BMP tests give significant information about the bio-methanation of specific substrates and provide experimental results essential to calibrate and validate mathematical models. These last two aspects have been handled in this work where the following elements have been described in detail: i) the methods used to conduct the BMP tests; ii) the cumulative bio-methane curves obtained from three BMP tests, concerning respectively two pure organic substrates (swine manure-SM and greengrocery waste-GW) and an organic substrate obtained by mixing buffalo manure (BM) and maize silage (MS); iii) the procedure used to calibrate a mathematical model proposed by the authors to simulate the anaerobic digestion process; iv) the results of the calibration process. This paper shows that BMP tests are extremely helpful to determine the amount of bio-methane obtainable from different organic solids and under different operational conditions as well as the biodegradability of the investigated substrate, the relative specific rate of bio-methanation and the synergic effect of multiple co-digested substrates. Furthermore BMP tests represent an interesting tool for the technical and economical optimization of bio-methane producing plants.

Methanogenic community composition in an organic waste mixture in an anaerobic bioreactor

“…This result is in agreement with the highest methane production during methanogenesis under a waste retention time of 47 days and confirmed the results concerning the microbial community structure (t-RFLP, NGS), which indicated that the acetotrophic Methanosaeta genus was the most active and important during the methanogenic stage. Esposito et al (2012) observed a methane potential of approximately 7-8 mmol CH 4 g -1 VS for different organic wastes, and Shah et al (2014) reported that the average efficiency of methanogenesis reached approximately 0.24 m 3 of methane from 1 kg of dry organic matter (i.e. 240 ml g -1 d.m.).…”

“…There are a few scientific reports (Enitan et al, 2014;Esposito et al, 2012;Nikolausz et al, 2013) that have collated the microbial consortium involved in anaerobic digestion for precise characterisation and comparison to the methane yield efficiency derived from each stage consortium. We hypothesise that gaining a data set on the methanogen composition using metagenomic tools and comparing it with the potential effectiveness of their activity will identify the essential step and methanogens involved in it, which will affect biogas profitability.…”

Bioconversion of Egypt's Agricultural Wastes into Biogas and Compost

“…VS [24,60]. Experimentally, co-digestion of a mixture of cow manure and fruit and vegetable waste (50:50 by weight) produced 450 m 3 ton -1 VS at 35 ±0.5ºC [61], whereas a mixture of buffalo manure and maize silage (70:30 by VS content) at 35 ±1ºC produced 358.23 ±44.15 m 3 [62]. It has also been shown that meadow grass with its biochemical methane potential value of 388 ±30 mL g -1 VS has a yield increase of 114% when codigested with manure in a continuous stirred tank reactor [63], and when a mixture of solid cattle slaughterhouse waste, manure, various crops, and municipal solid wastes are batch-digested in thermophilic process, a methane yield of 655 mL g -1 VS was obtained [64].…”

Perspectivas del ensayo de Potencial Bioquímico de Metano - PBM para el control del proceso de digestión anaerobia de residuos

“…El principio del ensayo de PBM consiste en la mezcla de un sustrato orgánico con un inóculo anaerobio en condiciones experimentales y operacionales definidas; el CH 4 generado durante la digestión anaerobia se cuantifica por un método de medición específico. El ensayo de PBM, al igual que el ensayo de Actividad Metanogénica Específica (AME) tiene diferentes aplicaciones [4,13,14,15]:…”

“…ensayo de Potencial Bioquímico de Metano (PBM), que se emplea a nivel mundial y se caracteriza por su simplicidad, relativa rapidez y bajo costo [2]. El ensayo de PBM consiste en emplear uno o varios sustratos y adicionar un inóculo activo bajo condiciones operacionales definidas, para medir la producción de CH 4 , mediante diferentes métodos (método manométrico, volumétrico o de cromatografía de gases) [3]. La primera propuesta metodológica o protocolo para el ensayo de PBM fue desarrollada en 1979 por Owen et al [2] para determinar la biodegradabilidad de materiales orgánicos bajo condiciones operacionales definidas durante 30 días, analizando el efecto del acondicionamiento alcalino sobre el valor del PBM.…”